Chris Christie ally invokes Fifth on subpoena

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s former campaign manager is fighting a subpoena from state lawmakers investigating the George Washington Bridge traffic scandal, according to a letter POLITICO obtained Friday.

Bill Stepien’s legal team is asking the lawmakers to withdraw his subpoena on the grounds that it violates his Fifth Amendment rights — becoming the second person to turn to that constitutional protection since probes of the controversy have begun. The demand suggests lawmakers who have expanded their investigation into the Republican governor’s inner circle could face major roadblocks.

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Stepien “maintains his innocence” and was not subpoenaed in a separate investigation the U.S. attorney in New Jersey is undertaking, his legal team from the firm of Marino, Tortorella & Boyle noted in the letter sent to Reid Schar, the attorney hired to assist the legislators’ probe.

“But the very real possibility that his act of producing documents and things responsive to the subpoena might compel him to furnish a link in the chain of evidence that could be used to ensnare him in the ambiguous circumstances of a criminal prosecution and thus force him to become a witness against himself, in violation of his fundamental right against self-incrimination — is a more than compelling reason to withdraw that instrument,” Stepien’s legal team wrote.

The lawmakers on the Democratic-controlled panel are seeking documents from Stepien and 19 other people and organizations — including Christie’s gubernatorial office and campaign — related to a traffic jam near the bridge last year that appears to have been orchestrated by Christie aides and allies as part of an alleged political vendetta. The lawmakers want the documents by Feb. 3.

The state and federal probes have become a major political headache for Christie, a potential 2016 presidential candidate.

Stepien has not been tied to organizing the closures. But messages from him surfaced in subpoenaed documents released earlier this month in which he mocked the Democratic mayor of the town where the traffic jam took place — a mayor who, unlike many Democrats in New Jersey, did not endorse Christie for reelection last year.

Christie said he was “was disturbed by the tone and behavior and attitude of callous indifference that was displayed in the emails” from Stepien. He sidelined the operative from roles he had planned to take within the state Republican Party and the Republican Governors Association, of which Christie is the chairman. Christie himself has denied having any knowledge or involvement in the alleged plot.

“Bill Stepien has not broken any laws,” his legal team wrote in the letter, which was reported on earlier Friday in The Washington Post and other news outlets. “He is one of the most well respected political consultants in America. Indeed, as is now widely known, he was poised to become Chairman of the New Jersey Republican Party and had already been retained as a consultant to the powerful Republican Governors’ Association when he was summarily disqualified from both positions following the publication of two email exchanges he had with executives of the Port Authority [the agency that controls the bridge].

“Those exchanges, both of which concerned newspaper articles that appeared after the bridge-lane closures, do not suggest that Mr. Stepien conceived or authorized the lane closures. Yet in the wake of their publication and his ensuing disqualification, there has been widespread speculation and ample innuendo to the contrary. Under the circumstances, Mr. Stepien simply has no choice but to invoke the constitutional and common law rights guaranteed to all persons — including, most critically, those innocent of any crime.”

Representatives for the state lawmakers’ committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s not the first time the Fifth Amendment has come up during the controversy. David Wildstein, a former Port Authority official and Christie ally, cooperated with a document request from state lawmakers during an earlier, narrower round of subpoenas. But he pleaded the Fifth when he was called to testify before lawmakers earlier this month.

An attorney from the law firm representing the Christie campaign, Patton Boggs, has said the campaign will cooperate with the state and federal subpoenas it has received.